Pham is an extremely nice guy and knowledgeable. Very accommodating and always answers people's questions. However, classes were sometimes a bit slow or he stops to answer too many people's questions. We fell behind and had to watch extra recorded lectures.

General course comments:
Lab worksheets are boring, long, and don't really help that much. Exams were hard to understand, wording is so vague sometimes. Launchpad's aren't very useful in terms of exams and spending extra time on them is a waste of time.

Professor Pham is a stellar professor, the class itself... not so much. Supposedly this class is the "easiest" of the LS7 series but the tests didn't feel like it was. Even one of the LA's during lab stated that they had no idea why the tests were hard compared to previous years; the wording was often very vague and tedious to comprehend. They (the instructional team) did give back points for questions they deemed unfair however. There was a fair bit of extra credit in the form of reflections and mini-midterms. I would take this class again with Pham (and any other classes he may teach) and highly recommend him. DO NOT underestimate this class just because it's called the "easiest".

Professor Pham is GREAT! Throughout the quarter, he was extremely helpful and did a good job explaining clicker questions, concepts etc. He’s an extremely passionate professor and if you have to take this class, I would definitely suggest taking it with him!

My main critique isn’t about Professor Pham, but just the class as a whole. The material (barring genetics) is absolutely uninteresting and launchpad is not helpful and will put you straight to sleep. I stopped reading launchpad about midway through the quarter and didn’t feel like I was missing out whatsoever. Labs are not helpful either, although TA Jalyssa made them a lot more enjoyable (BIG shoutout to her!!). They consist of filling out tedious worksheets that, in some cases, are legitimately at a 7th grade level. The exams were alright in terms of difficulty, but the wording (particularly on the 2nd midterm) was unclear for many questions and made it difficult to demonstrate my understanding of class material.

If you have to take this class, I’d highly suggest taking it with Professor Pham, as his enthusiasm makes this class more bearable.

This was a great class that I really enjoyed. It was challenging at times and pushed me and kept me on my toes. The class had 2 midterms and a final, along with pre-class quizzes and weekly quizzes as well. The first midterm was incredibly easy, but the second one was definitely harder and a lot of students ran out of time/scored significantly lower than the first. At times, it felt like the material was rushed but I can definitely understand why Dr. Pham wanted to get all of the material to us so we'd be prepared for the final. I loved how he required attendance by having iClicker Reef points, but also recorded the lecture so we can go back and re-do/review the clicker questions in our own time when we were studying for the exams. Like most LS classes, this was also a flipped classroom where most of the pre-class videos introduce/teach you what will be in class and we mainly do clicker questions in class. The questions for the pre-class quizzes are pretty easy and you can have multiple attempts at each question, but each wrong attempt for that question costs you 1/3 of the points. The weekly quizzes only allow 1 attempt and are just once a week, mostly during Friday and due at the end of the weekend.

Midterms are open for the entire day, but you only have a 2 hour window and the clock starts once you open the exam on CCLE. So get comfy and block out 2 hours at the best time that works for you to take it. The final is structured the same time window, but you're allowed 3 hours instead of 2. The TA videos are awesome for reviewing for the exams as well.

Dr. Pham is an incredibly passionate professor who really cares about his students and made this a great learning experience despite the external events going on. Definitely take this course with him! :)

The final was really fair

I have quite mixed feelings about this class. Before I begin, let me mention that Professor Pham in an amazing teacher and is very educated on the topics he discusses. However, his flaw is that he stop class too often to answer questions, which causes us to stay later online or have to watch the recordings after class. Who knows, maybe in person class will be different. I believe that the grading system is quite fair, they give you room to miss a couple of points in each category, similar to LS7A. The textbook and launchpads are absolutely useless. The only thing that is worthy of your time is the PEQs and the quizzes in the launchpad. The tests are pretty difficult and wordy, however if you enjoy the subject that might make it slightly easier. The labs are long and mindlessly boring. Overall Pham makes the subject interesting, but it does take a little time and effort. I believe the lectures and clicker questions are most helpful in preparing for the exams.

LS 4

So personally, I think a teacher's accent isn't a roadblock to any student's success in a class. Yes, Dr. Pham has a very thick accent, but the majority of people who paid attention in class understood everything he said.

With that said, I don't think you need Dr. Pham nor the textbook to succeed in his class. He gives you all the past exams for both midterms and sample final exam questions before the final. What more can you ask for? I did all of these and got an A in the class. Put in the time and effort and it should be very straightforward. Sure he isn't the ideal professor, but LS4 is a less than ideal course.

Pham is literally the most frustrating professor I have taken. He puts incorrect information on practice tests, and if you put this information down on the actual test, he marks you down and insane amount. His accent is very hard to understand, even though he is nice he is not a great teacher.

The course is heavily standardized across the different lectures/professors so the workload and content is the same. Dr Pham himself is very nice and enthusiastic. I am pretty bad at understanding people with accents and he does have a kind of heavy one but I found it wasn't an issue as long as I was paying attention to him (so if you're like me regarding understanding accents, downside is that you can't zone out while still sort of listening)

Class: Was on track for an A and then got absolutely humbled by the third AOL. Dr. Pham was really nice and was always open to answering questions. Personally I did not like the slides for this class and feel like it was really hard to be engaged during it especially since he talked fast and I feel like there would be a lot of pictures and not a lot of explanation. Since all the 7A classes have the same content, you can watch the lectures from other professors on the website, which I heard people say was really beneficial. They also use iClicker, but this is pretty much just effort based.

Work: This entire class is point based, which is great (unless you did terrible on the final like me). Pre-class and reflections were super doable, I would just do it all in one day and pretty much graded on effort. Practice tests (PALs) could be confusing & graded on accuracy, but worth very little points overall. Discussion assignments were usually gone over by your TA, but are graded on accuracy too in Gradebook, so pay attention. Out of all the AOLs, the 2nd one was the easiest, then 1st, and the final was atrocious, but if you have a good pod (who you will work with after each class on a worksheet, during discussion, and on the group final) I'm sure you'll be fine especially since they're all online which takes the pressure off a little bit. DO ALL THE EXTRA CREDIT. They offer a lot, and that's a grade cushion you wanna take advantage of.

Engaging and understandable. LS7a content is complicated, but this professor is patient enough to answer all questions about the material you have for him, and he is very warm when he explains things so you don't feel dumb.
The slideshows don't do well to prepare for AoLs, and he goes through them more quickly than I'd like. I have to admit that sometimes I can't understand some of his wordings. You have to attend all lectures because of Clicker lecture questions, which count for a hefty chunk of the participation grade. His Clicker questions are more accurate to the test type. Writing down his answers and walkthroughs of the Clickers helped me get good without having to attend any extra sessions.
This class emphasized busywork, but no curve, so everyone can get an A or F if you try hard. Lots of reading. Week 0 no lectures. The LS7a experience depends not on the professor (because the curriculum is shared across all the professors) but rather what pod members you get, if you understand textbook concepts, being able to read the AoLs' convolutedly worded questions, and how the TA helps you through discussion assignments. Pay attention to discussion assignment sheets, because those concepts/questions are similar (as in occasionally word for word the same) to exam questions.
I have to emphasize that the way things are written is not controlled by the professor; the exam questions are written by someone else, and the way they are written is unnecessarily grammatical, twisting concepts backwards in a way that makes you wonder why we learn things straightforwardly if they are going to be tested with an absurd amount of double-negative phrases. My grades for the AoLs ranged from Cs to As. The exam questions should be rewritten and reworded so that people can understand what they are being asked to do, rather than get it wrong from unclear writing and not any real misunderstanding. The English hurdles are wholly unnecessary to understanding biology concepts.
All in all, I recommend this professor.